Everyone likes an optimist. Guillermo Del Toro has revealed that he’s beavering away on Pacific Rim 2, the sequel to 2013’s hyper-blockbuster, Kaiju v mega-robot smash. 

Pacific Rim Kaiju
The Kaiju are a formidable foe

He told Buzzfeed: “I’m working very, very hard with Zak Penn. We’ve been working for a few months now in secret. We found a way to twist it around. Some people were wondering if we were going to do the prequel. I was never interested in doing that first wave of invasion,” he explained. 

More: read our review for Pacific Rim

That’s probably a good idea. The nuanced way in which Del Toro introduced the film’s universe to its audience was one of the best things about Pacific Rim. And if he continues to serve up ridiculous fight scenes choreographed to the tee. Del Toro added that Travis Beacham, co-writer of the first film, helped him come up with the storyline but has now had to move on because he is showrunning Fox's Hieroglyph. 

“I’m going for very new, very crazy ideas on the second one, which are very different from the first one – but you will get really great spectacle,” added Del Toro, who then revealed that the film hasn’t been formally greenlit by studio Legendary Pictures. “I don’t have the money” he said, “but I’m proceeding like it is happening.”

More: Relive the 'Pacific Rim' trailer

To be fair to Del Toro, it wont take long for funding to arrive. Pacific Rim closed in on $411m from the global box office, and given that it was a relatively new franchise, any sequel would gazump that figure by a good $200m. It also opened against Despicable Me 2, which went on to gross a mammoth $970m worldwide.